Posts Tagged ‘toyota supra’

Toyota delivers a surprise as it unveils the FT-1 sports car concept during the Detroit show's opener.

Forget the fuel economy numbers and the environmentally friendly products it normally talks about. When Toyota rolled into town for this year’s North American International Auto Show, it had muscle on its corporate mind.

Toyota delivered one of the big – if many – surprises to come from this year’s Detroit Auto Show as it revealed the new FT-1 sports car concept, which a senior executive described as “emblematic” of the more “passionate” direction the maker will take with its styling going forward.

A Sporting Choice!

While many of the makers launching new products at this year’s Detroit Auto Show gave reporters a sneak peek at what they were planning, the Japanese giant maintained a strict curtain of silence which led to even more speculation about what might be in store. Many observers were expecting to see the return of the once-popular Toyota Supra.

Could the partnership between Toyota and BMW mean the rumored return of the Supra might be a reality?

Could it be another merger of equals? Well, not on the scale seen previously, but BMW is confirming that it plans to work with Toyota to produce a pair of sports cars and share in the development of fuel cells and lightweight technologies.

“We have agreed on a joint architecture for a sports car. What is important is that there will be two different vehicles that are authentic to the two brands,” BMW’s development chief Herbert Diess toldFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

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The two companies inked a deal in 2012 to work together in four areas: joint development of a fuel-cell system, joint development of architecture and components for a future sports vehicle, collaboration on powertrain electrification and joint research and development on lightweight technologies. (more…)

The 1998 Toyota Supra was the last version of the sports car sold in the U.S.

Toyota’s long-lamented sports car, the Supra, could be headed for a revival, at least if the maker’s new chairman gets his way.

Produced from 1978 to 2002, the Toyota Supra once represented the pinnacle of the maker’s design and engineering capabilities, but it was pulled from production due to a variety of factors – leaving long-time fans calling for its return ever since.

A Supra Choice for News!

The loss of the Supra was, to critics, one more step backward for Toyota as it morphed into a plain vanilla brand best known for quality, reliability and boring green machines like the Prius. As the recent unveiling of a more stylish Corolla, as well as the introduction of the Scion FR-S sports car, demonstrate, Toyota is finally recognizing the need to put more passion into its products.

Toyota's FT-86 Concept II could serve as the platform for the long-lamented Supra. But might Toyota turn to Tesla to help develop a battery drivetrain?.

“Passion” is a word one hears a lot in conversations with Toyota executives these days, up to and including President Akio Toyoda, who points to recent introductions like the Scion FR-S and Lexus GS to underscore his intentions.

But it’s beginning to look like that’s just the beginning of Toyota’s performance aspirations, with new reports suggesting there could be at least a couple more performance machines on the Japanese giant’s horizons – notably in the form of all-new versions of the long-lamented Supra and MR-2 models.

Be in the Know!

But, as the new FR-S demonstrates, Toyota may take a very different approach in bringing those – or other – performance models back to life. One very strong possibility is that it could turn outside for help, perhaps to the likes of California-based Tesla Motors to provide a battery-based drivetrain for a new Supra.